One of Their Own
by Tora Ziyal
Summary: When one of the crewmembers aboard the Enterprise is killed, Commander Tucker is suspected as the muderer. *Revised edtion*
1. Main Engineering

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Author Notes: * mean thoughts. **{** mean when a character is talking on a communicator. Please read and review!!! I tried to make this first chapter as lest Mary Sue as I could.

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Disclaimer: Paramount owns Star Trek and the characters appearing in this story except for _Lieutenant-Commander Kyle Cavanaugh_, she's mine.

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Special Thanks: To Josephine for giving me a course on Mary Sue 101. Thank you so much :)

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Rating: PG-13

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One of Their Own

Chapter One

"Main Engineering"

By Tora Ziyal

"What do you mean, you sleepwalk?" 

"Ah mean Ah walk around when Ah'm sleepin' occasionally." Commander Tucker said from beneath one of the conduits in the main engineering room.

"Where do you go?" Lieutenant-Commander Kyle Cavanaugh laughed.

Tucker slid out on the dolly from underneath the conduit. "Well," he started. "One time Ah woke up and found myself in the Mess Hall at two-thirty in the mornin'. Ah had even gotten myself a piece of pecan pie!" He laughed.

Cavanaugh laughed along with him. "Are you serious, Commander?" She asked, handing him a wrench. She liked working with Commander Tucker a lot. She was very pleased when Captain Archer asked if she would assist him on this project.

"Ah'm very serious." He smiled at the red headed Lieutenant-Commander. "Hand me that laser soldering gun, would ya?" He asked as he lay on his back looking up at the conduit.

Kyle handed him the gun and crouched down next to him. "How long is this up-grade going to take?" She asked.

"Couple of hours or so." Tucker told her as he fiddled around with the wires and pipes beneath the conduit. "If you're gettin' bored, Kyle, Ah'm sure Ah can handle it by myself, but Ah'd rather you stay."

"Hey, I'm not going anywhere." Kyle replied as she changed positions from crouching to sitting. "I mean whose going to hand you your tools?" She joked.

Trip slid out from under the conduit again. "You're bored." He smiled at her. "Ah promise you'll be needed more after Ah gut this thing."

A smile played on Kyle's lips. "Of course you'll need me to put everything back in the conduit. Men are so incapable when it comes to reassembling things."

"Ouch, woman! That hurt." Trip said in his southern drawl. "Ah can get it done but we'll do it faster if we both work at it."

"I'm just teasing, Trip." Kyle laughed as she picked up a screwdriver and handed it to him.

"Ah know you are darlin'" Trip said as he slid back under the conduit. "Ah'm gonna start handing you parts and pieces, okay?"

"Gotcha." She said as trip handed her some colorful wires. She placed them next to the metal plates. "So is this going to stop that jerking that we've been experiencing lately?"

"Yeah, Ah hope anyway. It seems like every time we drop outta warp, we jerk. And Ah'm pretty sure this is the problem." He said handing her more conduit 'guts'.

"I'm glad Captain Archer assigned me to help you. I always wanted to work with you." She told him as she went about setting the guts on the floor next to her.

"You seemed like you'd be a help." He told her. "What's your field again"? 

"Botany, with a minor field in warp core schematics." She told him.

"So Ah got a gardener helpin' me out!" He joked. "That's a pretty odd pairing of fields."

Kyle smiled to herself. "Yeah, I know. My best friend wanted me to take the warp core class with her back when we we're in the academy. She told me all the cute guys took that class."

Trip let out a hearty laugh. "So that's why you took it!"

"For the most part but I actually got into it and found out I was pretty good at it. I worked pretty hard for the next couple of years and worked my rank up to Lieutenant-Commander." She said as she looked at Trip, which all she could see was his legs because he was so far underneath the conduit.

"The Captain said you we're good with numbers and that stuff." Trip said as he gave her a handful of nuts and bolts. "How's the botany thing going? Study any interesting plants?"

"A few. I'd really love to get down to a planet myself. Studying samples in the lab isn't the same thing as studying them out in their own habitat." She said, leaning back on the wall and closing her eyes.

"Ah think Ah got everything out." He said, sliding out and sitting up. He looked at Kyle and smiled. "Taking a nap, Lieutenant-Commander?"

Kyle opened her eyes and returned the smile. "Nope, just waiting for you to finish up." She noticed the black smudged dirt on his face. "You have dirt on your face." She said as she pointed to the area's where the dirt was.

"It tells me that Commander Tucker's been working." Captain Archer said as he came up from behind the two. "How's it coming?"

Tucker and Cavanaugh both turned around. "We're about to install the new coils, Sir." Tucker replied.

Archer nodded his head. "Good. Right on time. We're going to reach the Dorian System with in the hour."

"Are we going to go down to any planets, Captain?" Kyle asked.

"It's a possibility. If we discover any planets with excessive plant life, you'll be the first to go down there." Archer told her.

Kyle smiled. "Thanks, Captain."

"Finish up here and then I want you on the bridge, Trip." Archer said as he left engineering.

"Today seems like your lucky day, Kyle." Trip said as he smiled, looking into her green eyes.

"Looks like it." She smiled back. "Should I start handing you coils now?"

Trip was still gazing at her. "...Oh...Oh yeah, that'd be a good idea." He said as he lay back down and slid under the conduit again. He smiled once he was under there. He was becoming more interested to know more about Lieutenant-Commander Cavanaugh. She seemed to be a really nice person. She wasn't really attractive, sort of a plain Jane but, Trip thought she was kind of cute. *I wonder if she's involved with someone? I should just ask her.*

"Commander Tucker do you want the IC-100 coils or the B-17 200 coils?" He heard her ask him.

Tucker slid out on the dolly. "B-17 200." He replied.

Cavanaugh nodded and handed him the coils. "Here you go."

Trip took them and rested them on his chest. Kyle turned around to fetch more coils and when she turned around, trip was still in the same position as he was before.

"Something wrong, Commander?" She asked.

*Take a deep breath and ask.* He told himself. He shook his head no, and gave her a smile. "Do you ever see any of the movies they show on Friday nights?" He asked.

"Sometimes, but I usually don't have anyone to go with." She said to him.

"They're showin' _Casablanca _tonight. Ever see that one?" He asked her.

Kyle shook her head. "No, is it an ancient earth movie?" She asked.

"Yeah, a real tear jerker. Ah thought Ah'd go tonight and Ah was wonderin' if you'd like to come?" Trip asked as he clutched on to the coils like his life depended on them.

Kyle nodded her head. "I think I could do that. It would be fun." She smiled.

"Great. It starts at seven. Want me to come to your room or do you want to meet at the theater?" He asked.

"Actually, I'll be in the lab. Want to meet me there instead?" She asked

Trip's grip loosened up on the coil. "Yeah, sure. Is the lab on the tenth deck?" He asked her.

"Yep, deck ten, room 100-L." She told him. She looked over at the computer and then back at Trip. "We'd better get moving or instead of seeing a movie, we'll be watching warp coils glow." She laughed.

Trip smiled back. "Good thinking." He said as he disappeared back under the conduit.

To Be Continued....

((Chapter two will be up soon!))


	2. Blackout

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Author Notes: * mean thoughts. **{** mean when a character is talking on a communicator. Please read and review!!! 

Disclaimer: Paramount owns Star Trek and the characters appearing in this story except for _Lieutenant-Commander Kyle Cavanaugh_, she's mine.

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Rating: PG-13

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One of Their Own

Chapter Two

"Blackout "

By Tora Ziyal

Trip walked quickly out of main engineering and down the hall. *Man, I'm late!! Those conduit coils took longer than I thought!* He said as he got into the lift and pressed the button to go up to the bridge. *Hopefully I haven't missed anything important.*

The lift stopped and the doors opened up onto the bridge. All the senior officers were at their posts and even Doctor Phlox was there. Trip stepped out of the lift and walked over to Captain Archer.

Jonathan Archer gave him a slight smile. "Took a little longer than you expected?" He asked.

Trip nodded his head. "Yeah, some o' those coils were pretty tricky to get installed. We finally got them in though." Trip looked at Archer almost sheepishly. "Sorry Ah'm late, Sir."

Archer waved his hand. "It's fine. I rather have the coils installed properly than not." Archer turned to the view screen. "Besides, we just did some preliminary scans."

"What'd ya find out so far?" Tucker asked.

Archer looked somewhat sad. "That all the planets in the Dorian System are completely lifeless." He said and then looked over a T'Pol. "T'Pol will fill us in on the details."

Sub-Commander T'Pol turned towards Archer and the rest of the crew. "Our scans show that there is no life on any of the four planets in this system. There is a small water supply on the second planet that may indicate that there was life on it once. Besides that there is no plant or animal life. The forth planet doesn't even have oxygen but contains a toxic gas known as Xenderhyth. That's all the information I could gather Captain." T'Pol said as she finished her analysis.

"Thank you, T'Pol." Archer said as he turned to the rest of the crew. "It's ashamed that we came all the way to this system only to find out that." Archer told the crew.

The crew nodded in agreement. They all looked a bit disappointed that there was nothing to explore out here.

Ensign Mayweather turned to face Captain Archer. "At least we checked it out. We got to see the planets anyways." He said as he pointed to the brightly colored planets of the Dorian System.

Archer nodded. "I'm sure this is just the beginning of space, who knows what's--"

Archer was cut off as the _Enterprise_ began to vibrate violently. "What the!..." He said as he gripped on to the arm of the captain's chair. "Lieutenant, report!!" He shouted over the rumbling of the ship.

Lieutenant Malcolm Reed held tightly on to the side of his console to keep his body from sliding off the seat onto the floor. "Damage reports are coming in from all over the ship, Captain!" Reed pulled himself back up onto his chair to get a better look at the screen. "Decks 12 through 15 are with out power."

The lights on the bridge began to flicker. "What's happening?" Ensign Hoshi Sato asked loudly, over the rumbling sound of the_ Enterprise. _The lights began to flash like a strobe light, which startled Sato even more. Everyone on the bridge appeared to be moving in slow motion because of the lighting.

"Malcolm, report!" Captain Archer shouted again, standing up from his chair only to fall back down into again.

"Sir, my console went dead!" Lieutenant Reed shouted.

T'Pol began to move carefully from her science console to where Captain Archer was. She carefully grabbed onto anything she could get a good grip on and slowly made her way next to Archer. "Captain, the _Enterprise_ appears to be having some kind of mechanical difficulties. It's the only thing that seems to be logical, since there is no outside interference." She shouted to Archer.

Ensign Mayweather gripped onto his console to keep from falling out of his seat. The ship was vibrating so harshly that everything he let go on his console he was practically jolted to the floor. 

When the vibrating started Commander Tucker immediately grabbed hold of a metal bar that ran between the science console and the communications console. Every time he tried to move away from it he lost his balance and dropped to the floor. He pulled himself up again and grabbed a better hold on the bar. *I need to get over to the engineering console.* He thought as he looked into the direction to where it was. The ship continued to shake violently and the rumbling seemed to get louder. Several of the crewmen on the bridge fell to the floor. The lights stopped flashing in strobe but began to repeat from slowing going dim and then slowly coming back on again. Most of the consoles were offline at that point.

Doctor Phlox dropped to his knees next to Hoshi and grabbed hold of her console. "I'd say this is the worst vibrating we've experienced so far."

Hoshi turned her head to him. "Do you think it has to do with the warp core?" She yelled to him.

"I'm not the one you should be asking, Ensign." Phlox said back to her.

Captain, Ah'm gonna try to get to engineering." Tucker shouted over the noise.

"No, Trip you're staying here. I'm assuming all the lifts are out of operation and you'd never make it on the stairs." Archer told him.

"Sir, if Ah can git to engineering Ah could figure this out." Trip yelled back.

"That's an order, Commander!" Archer yelled. He looked to Hoshi. "Ensign, is any communication operating anywhere on the ship?'

"No, Captain." Hoshi shouted as she looked down at her failing communications console. "The communications station is almost dead, Sir."

Just when the crew of the _Enterprise _couldn't think it could get any worse; all the lights and power blacked out. The Enterprise was completely dark. The vibrating and rumbling stopped and all you could hear was the pounding of hearts and the heavy breathing of the crewmembers. "Is anything operational?" Archer said to break the silence.

"Sir, we have no power anywhere on the bridge. Life support is running at the bare minimum. I can't tell you if all the other decks are like this or not. We have no weapons or shields at this time." Reed reported

"Communications are still out, Captain." Hoshi reported.

"Helm is out, Sir." Mayweather told the captain.

"I'm assuming sickbay is not operating either Captain. If it is it's on minimum life support as well." Phlox guessed.

"Science station is inoperable, Captain." T'Pol told the captain.

From outside the_ Enterprise,_ a small white orb approached the ship. It came closer and began to observe the exterior of the ship. It floated through space almost like a vessel of some sort, only it was not a ship or a star, but a curious life form. It seeped through the outside of the _Enterprise _and floated into the inside making it's way through the darkness.

Captain Archer was beginning to get a little nervous although he did not wan to show it to his crew. He was a captain and his crew had faith in him, they needed him to be strong. Archer knew he should be doing something but what? There was no way off the bridge. There was no power. No communications. Life support was at the minimum, which had to be corrected quickly or a lot of good people were going to die. "Trip, do you think you possibly get the engineering console up and running?"

"Ah think Ah could but Ah'm gonna need a flashlight and something that Ah can derive some power from, like a tricorder." Tucker replied back, hoping that he'd be able to at least access engineering from the bridge.

"I think I've managed to find a flashlight, Sir." Crewman Drake said as he made his way through the dark with a lit flashlight in hand.

"Make it so." Captain Archer told Trip.

"We've probably got at least thirty minutes before life support fails." Reed estimated.

Trip and Crewman Drake walked over to the engineering console. "Ah'm gonna take this panel off and see if Ah can power it up but using the energy from the tricorder." Trip told the crewman.

Before Trip even got the bolts off the panel all the power on the bridge started up simultaneously. "That was quick." Archer replied.

"Wasn't me, Sir." Trip said with a shocked look on his face.

"Weapons, shields, and life support is running at maximum power, Sir." Malcolm said as his console lit up.

"Communications are operational, Sir." Hoshi said as she sent out a message to all decks telling them to report the damage.

"Captain, permission to return to sickbay." Doctor Phlox asked.

"Granted." Archer said. He turned to T'Pol. "What the Hell just happened?"

"I think the only way we'll know for sure is to see what happened in engineering." She told him.

Trip looked at the captain and her. "Ah'm on my way." He said as he ran out off the bridge and down to main engineering. 

"Helm is back online, Sir." Mayweather reported.

Archer nodded. "Take us out of the Dorian System for the time being, Ensign. I'm not sure but I have a feeling that something here played a part in our power failure. Warp 3." 

"Aye, Sir." Mayweather responded as he began to take the _Enterprise _out of the Dorian System.

Captain Archer returned to his seat and waited for all the damage reports to come in. He sat there pondering what exactly happened and if it would happen again.

To Be Continued....


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